Who Can Buy Navigo Easy?

Tourists can buy Navigo Easy as well as residents of Paris & Ile-de-France. i.e. Anyone can buy the Easy card.

The Navigo Easy doesn’t require a photo (unlike Navigo Decouverte) and is an anonymous card.

Each person must have their own Easy card when travelling together. You can’t share one card among several people traveling at the same time. i.e. pass-back of card or tapping repeatedly at the same turnstile/fare gate is not allowed.

How Much is Navigo Easy?

Navigo Easy costs 2€ for the card fee, plus however many tickets you buy and add onto the card. Note that as of Nov. 1, 2019 booklets of ten Metro tickets are discounted 2€ from 16.90€ to 14.90€ if put on a Navigo Easy card. Effectively, with the 2€ discount, the Navigo Easy card is free. (Buying a carnet of classic paper Metro tickets will still cost 16.90€). This extra carnet discount for Navigo Easy is an incentive for travelers to switch to the preloaded ticket card from paper Metro tickets, which Paris is aiming to phase out.

Antipollution ticket (3.80€, unlimited rides for all 5 zones on Paris Metro, Bus, Noctilien (night bus), RER, Tram, Transilien trains, but only available during days when air pollution is particularly high. OrlyVal train from Antony-Orly is excluded.)

Note that you can load 30 Metro tickets, in addition to the other fares such as Orlybus / Roissybus / Navigo Day Pass, at the same time. While a Navigo Day Pass is active, it will be the first to be used prior to any single-use Metro ticket, as long as the appropriate zone coverage is met. (See Fare Restrictions below.)

Check Ticket Balance

You have several ways to check Navigo Easy balance to see how many Metro tickets are on the card:

automated ticket vending machine

at a turnstile / fare gate

Navigo card validation machines on buses & trams

at any Metro / RER / Transilien station ticket window

To check ticket balance on an automated Metro ticket vending machine‘s Navigo reader, place the Easy card on the purple Navigo card reader or inserted into the Navigo slot (depending on the machine). This will prompt the ticket vending machine to show the current ticket balance on a Navigo Easy card.

Photo by Pline

Photo by Transilien

When you validate an Easy card by holding it on the purple Navigo reader on newer turnstiles & fare gates, the number of unused Metro tickets on Navigo Easy is shown on a screen. Same with Navigo validation machines on Paris buses & trams: when you hold the card to the reader, the remaining ticket balance will show on the display.

Fare Restrictions

Navigo Jour (Day Pass) AND Orlybus / Roissybus, cannot both be loaded due to overlapping coverage

two Navigo Day passes valid for the same day

Day Pass / Navigo Jour

Navigo Easy can hold up to two Navigo Jour / Day Pass at any one time as long as the validity dates are different. Navigo Day Pass allows you to specify up to six days in advance when you would like your day pass active. So as long as the day pass active dates are different, you can load up to two day passes on a single Navigo Easy card.

Roissybus / Orlybus

You can hold more than one Roissybus and Orlybus tickets on Navigo Easy at the same time. This allows you to have Roissybus return tickets or Orlybus return tickets on the Easy card, to save you from having to return to a ticket vending machine to buy a ticket for the return portion of your trip. (I’m unsure of the upper limit of Roissybus/Orlybus tickets that can be loaded at one time. RATP didn’t have this information on hand.)

Sharing Navigo Easy

Navigo Easy can be shared between travelers, but not for the same trip at the same time. (You can’t do a pass-back of the card through a turnstile for another person to use.) Paris Metro tickets are good for 2 hours of travel & transfers between lines from the time of validation at a turnstile/gate. While the card has a validated ticket it essentially cannot be shared; using it at another turnstile that is not part of a transfer (i.e. exiting a station and entering again at another) will consume another Metro ticket from the tickets stored.

* Paris Metro paper coupon tickets are still available and usable after June 12, 2019. The paper based single-use Paris Metro coupon-style tickets are being phased out slowly. The end of paper Metro ticket sales is currently targeting summer to end of 2020. There’s no word on when existing Metro tickets will stop being accepted for travel, but likely much later than 2020.

What Next?

Author: Ben Lam
Hi my name is Ben and I’m the creator & author of Parisbytrain.com. I want to empower you with the knowledge & confidence to travel Paris like a local through personally researched, in-depth articles like CDG to Paris by train and the Paris Metro. I moved to Paris in 2006 and started Parisbytrain.com in 2008 to share what I’ve learned about the vast & comprehensive Paris train network. Have Paris train questions? Ask them here. Have a great visit to Paris!